04 Dec 2024 Turin Median Collector: TBM starts on St. Barbara’s day
Today, December 4, is a relevant day for the Turin Metropolitan Collector Median project, assigned by SMAT – Società Metropolitana Acque Torino to the Colmeto JV, formed by Itinera and Ghella. The project will connect the SMAT wastewater treatment plant located in the north of Turin with the southern areas of the city and some neighbouring municipalities.
On St. Barbara‘s Day, the patron saint of miners and all those who work in underground works, in the presence of SMAT’s top management and many institutional authorities , the TBM Gaia was lowered into the collector start-up shaft. The full-section Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), which has been given the name “Gaia,” is a machine that allows the complete mechanization of the tunnel excavation and the simultaneous construction of the lining.
Gaia will excavate a 9.5-kilometer tunnel, the most relevant section of the project, that also includes the construction of an additional 5.2 kilometers of tunnels to be completed by conventional method. In total, the excavation volume will be about 270,000 cubic meters.
The lowering of the TBM into the shaft represents a milestone in the project’s execution program, made even more meaningful by the recurrence of St. Barbara’s Day: on this day, TBM technology is intertwined with the history and tradition of the tunnelling world.
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